This week I’m working on some projects for class that have to do with suicide. I don’t really know how to handle that. Even though I’m plugged into therapy, an hour every other week isn’t enough to process all the stuff going on in my life.
Things are going better, stress is on the decline. Sometimes I feel like I can see a light at the end of the tunnel of this set of classes, but there’s tough days still ahead. Tomorrow I’ll be spending 3 hours talking about suicide in class. Then over the weekend I’ll be doing 16 hours over two days dealing with strategies for dealing with suicide. Luckily Thursday includes a therapy session, but I don’t know how much progress I’m going to make.
Then there is how I’m starting to understand that it isn’t just depression that makes people including me suicidal. It can be anxiety, or other mental illness problems. There are dangers to living in the world I live in. Today I read that I’m in the highest risk groups, college student and my history of problems put me high in the risk zone for these things to come back.
Then there are things I might not be able to do, because of my risk factors. I had a dream of working for the military or VA. I wanted to go in when I was younger, but it just couldn’t happen with how sick I was. Now I’m witnessing the death of the dream entirely, because VA workers and military service members are screened against risk factors. It’s a rational reasoning, they don’t want to put people at risk, I just don’t know how to take it. It ticks me off that I can never serve my country. I feel cheated of my ability to live up to my potential.
It kind of is what it is though. My upset-ness isn’t going to improve the situation. I need to process all this stuff but I’ve been riding my support people so hard that I can’t stand to bother them. Isolation, it’s a major risk factor for depression
Yet, my personality isolates. I need alone time for self care, but what happens when there’s too much alone time? What if I need love, care, all that touchy feely stuff?
I don’t know.
3 comments
Do you have under documentation that you might have a ‘mental illness’ /were hospitalized? I know it can ruin many, many dreams .. I would’ve looked into the same type deal but now I know it’s impossible with all the trash on my name. Sit here and rot I suppose, then.
Sometimes you have got to go it alone, I guess.
It’s unclear how hard coded into my record my mental illness is. I have been hospitalized but that was carefully avoided from being documented. My mental illness isn’t something I make much effort to hide to someone that cared to look. It’s public record enough that I have been denied life insurance. That’s the only practical effect, that and last time I talked to a recruiter they said I would have to be free of medication help for a year. At present that is impossible. I’m also rapidly aging out of recruitable age. Officers get a higher threshold I think, but…. unlikely at this point.